Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Time Tripping

So. The Bengals are in the Playoffs, Steve Martin is missing out on showcasing his epic talent (and huge physical comedy) by playing a dad in a movie, and a President Bush is cranking up the AC because he feels the heat in the White House.

What is this, 2006 or 1991?

It's strange how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Ever since I moved back to the town where I spent my childhood, I've had different moments crop up to remind me of my humble beginnings.

Last week brought one of those weird moments.

I was standing in one of the cute shops of Hyde Park when I immediately noticed a chick I was in Girl Scouts with. It was one of those troops with like 25 different little girls (the dork, the over-achieving cookie seller, the teacher's pet, and the beauty queen... to describe a few of the characters) who had sleepovers, went on camping trips (I was always the troublemaker who pulled the stakes out of the ground so all the troop moms had to pop the pup tents back up) and did other various things to earn those damn patches. Patches: I needed those stinkin' patches. They were like little talismans of status to the 10 year old set.

Anyway.

This girl I ran into. She and I were friends way back in the day, way back before I knew her grandparents sold a little baseball team to a crazy woman who hated mens' earrings and loved St. Bernards. Back in the day when I didn't know the city's university football stadium shared her last name. Yeah. Way back. I just thought she was a fun, silly girl who was a bit overbearing and yet loved singing the musical score to the movie La Bamba (which pretty much consisted of Richie Valens' classic hit).

It was odd seeing this chick, talking to her about the last 15 years since I saw her last and how we are pretty much grown up versions of our smaller selves. Instead of cottilions, she is jetsetting around the world (and doesn't have to work. Gosh, lucky! as Napoleon Dynamite would say) while I am hoofing it in the middle of the night (as opposed to all that hoofing I did to sell the Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos in my Chuck Taylors).

Another trip in time:

I had to go to the doctor's office today. Something to do with that gastroenterology thingy I talked about a while back. I won't really go in depth about what's going on (all those HIPAA laws and all), but I will say this: a night at the office without as much as a sip of water and the cold jelly courtesy of an ultrasound led me to treat myself to one of my favorite dining spots as a kid.

I sat there in Blue Ash (can you tell I'm an Eastsider?) with my Cin Weekly and my soup, just kind of savoring the noises and flavors I enjoyed with my dad when I was a kid. He'd toss me in the passenger side of whatever company car he was driving at the time (everything from a landshark Caprice Classic to the vroom-vroom-vroom of a Chevy Lumina) and my sisters and I would help him run his Saturday errands. Mostly it was a chance to give my mom a break from the melee of three girls, but all these years later I feel like we're gonna swing by for a bowl of matzo ball whenever I ride in his car.

And so, whether it's the soup or a trip to a Reds game (I swear to god, Marge used to make me chocolate chip cookies), thinking about the past isn't a bad thing. While I do not claim to be any mental professional, I tend to believe that thinking about the past can help you work on where you want to go in the future.